


Love Will Tear us Apart Again

by Beech27



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-04 23:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3095768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beech27/pseuds/Beech27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra and Asami have found love, but also a world that rejects it. They struggle with how - or if - to continue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fiction stemmed from a hypothetical: What if the Avatar Universe had a deep culture of homophobia? (Of course, there's nothing in the existing canon to indicate that this is the case. Hence it's a hypothetical.) The result is a darker alternative to the "happily ever after" scenarios (many of which I love), and imagines something like "worst case" political - and ultimately, personal - ramifications. It's a very slight AU without a convenient tag, basically. 
> 
> Also, I stole the title of this work from Joy Division.

The room was open, unadorned. The walls reflected the barest amount of what little light hung overhead. It was all muted. It was dull. Synthetic. Something unnatural, a product of Future Industries - and by some degree, Asami Sato’s mind. She called it plastic. Said it would revolutionize manufacturing.

Maybe it would. Kuvira didn't know, didn't care, because she would likely never see the future expand. She didn’t know anything about the outside world, except what she gleaned from the daily newspapers she was granted. Some years ago, all metal had been removed from the ink. A shame. The writing itself was never worth a damn.

But they were careful about such things. Her guards were inspected daily for any article of clothing that might contain metal. None were allowed in who had dental fillings. Their shoes were removed when they brought her food, lest they track dirt in. Even the food itself was bland. She was never given red meat, based on some superstitious inclination that she could perhaps pool the substantial iron in it. And then her utensils and plate were plastic as well. Lifeless, flimsy materials, suitable only for an artificial life.

She felt wholly extracted, completely drained.

And she had been. Cut off from her empire, her people, her elements. They were still all hers, and they all still should be. The papers told her that much, at least. The elections, when they finally occurred, had been a disaster. Rigged things, bought and paid for. Voter suppression. Lost ballots. Where that failed, outright lies concerning totals. The Avatar had campaigned for the right kind of person, of course; and the right kind of person had lost every time. The resulting government had been worse even than the elections that gave it life. A hive of corruption where justice went to the highest bidder. Bandits roamed freely, killing and stealing. Dead citizens begat angry mobs, which begat more death. It was all on the verge of violent revolution, after only two years. She had known this would happen, had been more sure of it than anything in her life. She'd promised them. 

Or rather, promised her. Korra was the only one who had come, and she had come often in the months before the elections, hoping to glean some insight into the hearts and minds of Kuvira's people. Kuvira had instead offered her lists of hearts and minds to break. Local officials with greedy hearts, police with secrets best kept hidden. She had laid out a plan for crushing such people - her camps would still be functional, after all. Korra had heard none of this, however, choosing instead to believe in her flights of democratic fancy. She had not come since.

\-----

A knock on the door. An ambient thump. She longed for the sharp ring of bone against steel, but there could be no such thing here.

“A visitor, Kuvira. Please stand back from the door.”

She glared at the eyes in the slot, turned, and walked to the other side of the room. She pressed herself up against the far wall. The touch of it disgusted her. They always asked this, despite the fact that her - plastic, of course - bindings did not allow her to come within several leaps of the door. That too disgusted her. The orders, trivial things, and yet she followed.

The door opened, silhouetting a tall, lithe figure. A jacket with strong shoulders and a pencil skirt. No shoes. The feet slid across her cell floor until the figure was close enough to toss her a rolled up newspaper.

Kuvira called out to her elements, a desperate shout into a void. It was not returned.

“You were careful with your buttons,” she said.

“I’m always careful,” said Asami Sato. “The paper is a day old. You’ll forgive me.”

Kuvira glanced at the firebenders behind Miss Sato.

“Could we have a moment?”

“No,” responded four voices, trained to act as one.

Asami turned to them, her face a mask, her voice silk.

“Please. Just stand outside the doorway. She can’t bend here, and without that, I’m more than a match for her, even at her best.” She turned back to Kuvira, her lips outlining a cruel red smirk. "And she looks far from her best, these days."

Kuvira did not respond. Did not move. This place was Asami’s insult to her; what could words do, by comparison? Well, she would find out.

The guards did recede.

Kuvira picked up an old paper, turning, turning, until she found the pages hidden at the back.

“Do you know what they say about you, here?” She pointed, cleared her throat. “The robber baroness has, by virtue of perverting Avatar Korra, done more to disgrace the Sato name than her father ever could have.” She moved the paper to the side, found Asami’s eyes, raised a single eyebrow. “And that takes some doing. Your father was, after all, a murderous bigot.”

She had expected a flush of anger from Asami then, but there was nothing like that. A clench of her right fist. Nothing more.

“I forgave him those things when he helped to stop you. He made mistakes, as we all do. He died, as we all will. I am at peace. You won’t find a scab to pick there.”

“A scab? I’m not looking for your blood, princess. You don’t realize this, but I’m trying to help you. Well, trying to help your interests, insofar as they align with mine. You - collectively you, your band of Korra acolytes - carried forward a naive ideal of governance and in so doing ruined my empire. My people are now ruled by drug runners and street thugs, propped up by rigged votes, a broken system.”

“And that is why I’m here,” said Asami, moving closer. Kuvira could reach out and touch her now. Reach out and strike her. She couldn't bend this plastic but she could surely strangle with it. “How do we fix this?”

Kuvira held up three fingers.

“One. Restore me. This would be difficult, I grant, and not something you could do alone. But you have the funds to be a great influence, and friends - especially one oh so close - with influence as well. Once the political machinations are finished, do nothing for a year. Turn your back on the border, unless you have a stomach for bloody work. When it’s time to look again, you will find a restored, prosperous empire. The blood of those who would exploit my people will instead fertilize their bright future.”

Asami did not move. Not even worth a response? Kuvira felt fury at her placidity. It really would be that easy. Her people needed her. Needed her now. How could no one see? 

“I assumed as much. That would be the easiest choice. The only path that promises absolute, unequivocal success. Do keep it in mind.  But, if not that, then two and three are inseparable.” Kuvira dropped her ring finger, and twisted the remaining two together. “Two. Korra must listen to my advice, and follow it explicitly. Certain people need to be dealt with in certain ways. She knows who, and she knows how. I’ve written her documents on this. If she’s lost them, I can do it again. Of course, with her present level of influence, maybe she couldn’t put my plans into action. Twenty percent approval rating? I've never seen a number so low. Which brings me to three.”

Kuvira dropped her middle finger.

“You must leave Korra. Tell her that it's politically expedient, or even necessary. If she won't budge, tell her that you've found a man, that you don't love-”

That found Asami’s rage. Her right hand opened, and she grabbed Kuvira by the neck, lifting her off the ground, pressing her up against the wall. Even without shoes, Asami was tall. And far stronger than Kuvira might have guessed. 

The fire of her ancestors burned in Asami's eyes. “You don’t speak on that. No one does.”

Kuvira found her composure, raised her hands slowly. In the past, she'd have enjoyed breaking this girl's arms, her entire body. But she was weaker now, and needed a different kind of attack. “No one speaks on that? Asami, everyone speaks on that. I read about it everyday. You must know this.” Asami’s eyes looked past her. “You think I say this to goad you? To break you?” She slowly pressed her hands against Asami’s shoulders, creating space between them, as she was returned to her feet. “It’s nothing like that. Please, let me ask you something.”

Asami backed away. Her eyes filled with moisture, born from deep wells, dousing the flames.

“When I fired on you, and thus Baatar, did you see that as a betrayal of my love?”

“Of course. There was nothing else it could have been.”

“You’re wrong.” Kuvira said. Her voice was a fragile thing. “Everyone is. No one sees, because no one knows what it’s like to lead a people like I did.” She clutched at her chest. “It was an act of love.”

Asami scoffed. “Love? What, you would put him out of his misery, rather than subject him to our presence? Your mercy is truly endless, Great Uniter.”

Kuvira snarled at that. “You mock me, and yet I succeeded where you - for all your genius - and your lover - for all her strength - are failing. Where you have already failed.” Kuvira’s eyes began to wet. “It was an act of love. Love for my empire, my nation, my people. You think I didn’t love Baatar? I did. I still do. But Korra, by offering me that choice, gave me no choice at all. I had to fire. I had to win. For my people. I loved them, too. Loved them more. As a leader must. To lead is to sacrifice one’s self for one's people. My happiness didn't matter.”

Moments passed, became minutes. Silence filled the room, hung between them like a choking miasma.

Kuvira sat. “Your avatar and I took a little Spirit World vacation ourselves.”

Asami cocked her head. She had known, of course. Had seen them emerge. But apparently Korra hadn’t told her much about the conversation. “I know. Attempting to make me jealous?” Levity. Or something like it.

Kuvira let out a sigh that could have begun to form a laugh, but she was exhausted. “No. Beautiful girl, in her way. But I was never inclined in... that direction. And even if I was, I’d certainly have the good sense not to act on those feelings. And even if, in a moment of weakness, I did act on those feelings, I’d have the good sense to hide it all. The girl would've ended up in a camp, not holding my hand in public, not kissing me at galas.” She motioned to other old papers, the pictures chronicling her words.

“I'm sorry, Kuvira. You're broken. You lost yourself sometime before you fired that weapon, but it was calcified then. Your heart and your humanity, both gone. Subsequently, you lost your empire and your people.” Asami’s eyes hardened. “There is a causal relationship between these things.”

Kuvira shook her head, waved away Asami's accusations. “While there, she told me we were alike. That she understood me. That we were both, What was it?, fierce and determined to succeed.”

“She wasn’t wrong.”

Kuvira smiled, her pieces in place. Her words set them to movement. “She was, though. The comparison flattered her. We weren’t alike, because she wasn't half the leader I was. And she's still not half the leader I could be, if only you’d restore me to power. I was determined to succeed at all costs. I was willing to sacrifice Baatar - my love, my own heart - to do it. To be a leader is to make such decisions. That is true determination, and Korra knows nothing like it. She undermines her political capital with a deviant relationship, at a time when the world needs her leadership more than ever. When the world needs balance, and unity, she brings nothing but division. When my people need her, she gives them nothing but anarchy and death."

Kuvira reached out for Asami, grasping for her hands, her eyes, her mind, her heart. “I will not see my people hurt and do nothing. They are mine, even still. Their pain is my pain. So I say again, restore me to power. If you won't do that, then you have to leave her, Asami. Leave her and let her be the world’s avatar, not just yours. If you love her at all, you'll let her go.”

\-----

When the door closed, it clicked into place almost silently. You couldn’t slam this material to any real effect. Still, it looked to Kuvira that Asami had tried.


	2. Chapter 2

Asami drove hard. She often did, and always wondered why more people didn’t indulge. Perhaps they didn’t trust the road surface or the tires as much as a mind that understood the R&D needed to bring technology like this into the world.

The car streaked down the road towards the Sato Estate like a single blue raindrop fallen from the sky. Blue, she wondered idly. The man at the dealership had looked shocked when she had requested her latest Satomobile be blue, rather than her typical red and black.

“Something different?” he had asked.

“Something different,” she had confirmed.

But how different, she wasn’t yet sure. Not then.

Those had been hard years. Years without Korra. Years without so much as a word. Years without hope. She had worked, done nothing else, hoping to find satisfaction in making things - in making the world a certain way. She would take control of the things she could.

But she could only change so much. In so many ways, the world was unchanging. Hateful. Bigoted. As ever. As, maybe, it always would be.

\-----

Korra was in the basement. Asami could hear her working the heavy bag as soon as she approached the front door. The chain protested, the bag swung, and Korra - now more than she used to - screamed with every strike.

Asami walked to the kitchen, her footfalls aligning with the rhythm of Korra’s fists. She smirked at this. They had always had a… connection. A sense of knowing what the other was going to do. It had made them heroes once.

Her smile faded. Heroes once. But not now. And why? Because she held the other woman at night? Because they shared tears, kisses, knowing glances? Because they shared a home? A life?

Asami found herself in the kitchen, sipping tea she hadn’t remembered preparing. She thought for a moment on the automation of tasks, on how one could perform movements without conscious attention.  

She didn’t notice that the heavy bag had stopped thumping, nor had she heard Korra approach. But Korra was in front of her then. Wearing shorts and a tank, kickpads and taped fists, she was drenched, heaving.

“Hey,” she said. “Didn’t hear you come in. Needed some water.”

Asami moved to grab a glass.

“I can get it,” Korra said.

Asami tossed her a kitchen towel. Well, a towel that resided in the kitchen. The utility was the same. “I’ll get the drink. You dry off. Then sit.” Asami gestured to the kitchen table, set down her tea.

Korra wiped herself off, her eyes beginning to form a question. She removed the kickpads, sat, began to untape her hands.

“Is… something the matter? You don’t look great and-”

“I don’t look great?” Asami interrupted. She smiled, walked over to Korra and placed her hands on her shoulders, ran them down her arms. She felt Korra flex. “Sorry, but we can’t all spend our days getting lathered up like some hot mess from an adult mover.”

Korra grinned at that.

“Is that what I needed to sit down for? Asami, these kitchen chairs are bit… uh… weak for that, don’t you think?”

Asami jerked her hands away, cursing herself for getting distracted. They needed to talk. About Kuvira. About what Kuvira had said. They needed to... they needed to explore the possibility that perhaps she was right. That perhaps Korra would be better off without her. The thought was crushing. If only she could open her mind to those hateful voices, let them read her like a book. If they could know - if they could feel even for a moment what Asami felt when she saw Korra, then surely they would know. Then surely they couldn’t hate them any longer.

If they knew, how could they say it was wrong? That it was grotesque, perverse? That she was ruining this Avatar, spitting on the legacies of all those before and all those yet to come-

Asami felt Korra’s arms around her. Strong, as before, as always. Satisfaction drowned her anxiety. Korra’s hands moved to wipe away tears Asami hadn’t known she was crying.

“Asami, please, what’s wrong?”

She didn’t say a word. Couldn’t find them. She buried her head in Korra’s shoulder and sobbed for every word uttered against them, every article, every protester, every bigot hiding behind concern for “social fabric” or “the children”.

“They hate us.” The words came out choked. Asami held her tears, fought them back, found her voice. “They hate us, Korra. They’re always going to hate us.”

“Asami.” Korra’s eyes were still so blue as to be startling. “They… they’ll come around. Slowly, maybe, but they will. What we have is… it’s so beautiful. How could they not see?”

Asami wiped off her own face, coughed. She was stable again, thankfully. She hated those outbursts, though they had grown increasingly frequent. Hadn’t she almost attacked Kuvira? What a disgrace.

“How can they not see? I… I have no idea. Even after spending hours every day thinking about it, I can’t guess. But that… that thinking about it… it makes me less sure that they’re coming around. That they ever will. Korra, you haven’t been invited to any official government function in seventy two days. The board ‘suggested’ I skip the last fundraiser dinner for the Republic City Orphanage. And the graffiti on your statue is growing increasingly disturbing. I’m thinking maybe it should just be… moved.”

“Taken down.” Korra shrugged. “I don’t care about the statue. Never did. And, well, I didn’t know it had been seventy days since I’d been invited to campaign, cut ribbons, whatever. But I know it’s been a long time. Do you… do you count these things?”

“Not on purpose, if that makes sense.” Now it was Asami’s turn to shrug. “I just remember certain things without trying… and I’ve always remembered numbers exceptionally well." Asami knew she shouldn't, but could't resist. "And it was seventy two days. You said seventy."

“You have a beautiful mind,” said Korra, smiling. “And everything else, of course. You really do astound me, even still. You know that, right?”

Asami did know. She felt the same for Korra, of course. She wondered - not for the first time - why she did. If she should.

Their hands interlocked, and their eyes met. Asami was reminded of that night she had entered the Spirit Portal with Korra. She had been so happy then. So sure of certain things, so terrified of others. But she saw her future in Korra’s eyes, and she wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything before. She couldn’t have known that it would be like… like this.

She had known, of course, that being queer carried with it a certain stigma. As a matter of trivia, she was aware that no openly queer person had been elected to public office... anywhere, that she was aware of. There were rumors about certain of her - married, but still - tycoon counterparts, but nothing confirmed. They hid things well, and could pay for silence. She knew that it was a hushed thing, not a matter of public discourse. No pro benders. No actors. No celebrities of any kind. And no previous Avatars, she was often reminded. She knew that they were considered, in every sense, wholly “other”.

She had thought - perhaps hoped - that they could be different. That they would change things. Make them better. The two most powerful women anywhere could surely love who they wanted. And could perhaps change minds that had never considered anything but prejudice. But no. They were, perhaps to a greater extent than anyone, "other".

But she didn’t feel "other". Didn't feel queer, in the literal sense of the word. Truthfully, she had always found the word ironic in that way. Queer, as in odd? She didn’t feel odd. She felt like herself. Like she always had. Like Asami. Like she knew trust, caring, a healthy relationship. This self that loved Korra was the same that had been the most admired woman in Republic City, a titan of industry, a technological genius, a giving philanthropist. They had loved her then.

And now that she dare love Korra, they loved her no longer.

\-----

They had gone to bed then. Entangled with one another, Asami had begun to cry again. It was so beautiful. So perfect. How could they not see? How could they hate them for this? Tears of joy and tears of anguish felt the same.


	3. Chapter 3

Asami studied the width of her hands on the bar, shoulder width apart, palms turned in. Pull the elbows down. Exhale. She connected her mind to each muscle that fired, in sequence. Slowly lowering herself, then raising herself again. Constant, uniform tension.

She moved to the parallel bars. Found her grip, her width. She pressed herself up, lowered herself down. She delighted in the order of these movements, in the beauty and complexity of the human machine.

Of course, it didn’t hurt to have Korra around as motivation.

She moved to the tumbling mat. Aesthetic concerns were one thing, function another. She bounded across the mat, twisting, flipping. Firing off kicks, punches, knees, elbows, at invisible opponents. She put on her dummy shock glove. The mechanism was disabled, but it was otherwise identical, and she needed to practice with the weight of it. There was a rhythm to all of this, a dance to music only she could hear.

She remembered the day before, the sounds of Korra punishing the heavy bag. Though not part of her usual routine, Asami walked towards it, discarded her shock glove, and donned a pair of heavy boxing gloves. She smirked. They felt stiff. Probably, Korra had never actually used them.

As her fists set to work, her mind remained on the previous day. On Kuvira. On what she had suggested, on how she had agitated for either release or… well, or something she could hardly stand to name. But she would have to. Would have to speak to Korra about this. Today. Over breakfast. Maybe, as soon as she saw her. There couldn't be any more avoiding it, as she’d done the day before.

“Asami, I think you beat her already.”

Korra was in the doorway, wiping sleep from her eyes, sipping tea.

“Her?” Asami asked, searching for breath. She was exhausted. And her shoulders! She wouldn’t be able to lift a wrench for two days at least.

“You were muttering something for the last minute or so. The only word I could pick out was ‘Kuvira’. But you seemed really focused, so I didn’t want to interrupt… until I did.” Korra raised her eyebrows. A question.

Asami stripped off the gloves, dropped them to the floor. “I suppose I have a little pent up aggression, regarding her.”

Korra approached, her eyes soft. The hand which wasn’t occupied with a teacup reached out for Asami. “I know. I know and I’m sorry. What she took from you… it’s not something you can ever forgive, it’s-”

“It’s not that,” said Asami, with more anger in her voice than she intended. “Sorry. I’m still riding the adrenaline a bit. I’m going to go wash up, take a second to cool off. When I’m done, meet me in the living room. We’ll talk about it. Talk about Kuvira.”

\-----

Asami took her time. Showered slow, showered cold. Applied her makeup deliberately. Dressed for any other day at the office, which she desperately wished this could be.

This was not a conversation she wanted, and she hated Kuvira for making her have it. Hated that, if only a fractional part, some piece of her felt her ideas were… worth discussing, at least.

The Earth Republic - it felt like such wishful thinking to call it that - was in disarray. No denying it. And she should help, shouldn’t she? In any way possible. Anyway, it was just a talk. She wasn’t suggesting anything to Korra… just… mentioning things. As possibilities.

\-----

Korra was already on the couch when Asami entered. Dressed in her work clothes, such as they were. She looked every bit the Avatar in dress, and every bit the anxious girlfriend otherwise.

Asami sat down next to her, clasped both of her hands. “I went to see Kuvira yesterday.”

Korra turned her head slightly. “Ok? I mean, yeah, that’s ok. Did you… did you need closure? Like how I needed to see Zaheer-”

Asami shook her head. “No. This isn’t about my father. I’ve come to terms with that. It’s about the Earth Republic.”

“Not good,” said Korra, looking down. Guilt in her eyes at a failing state she perceived as one of her greatest undertakings.  

“I just… I just thought maybe Kuvira would have some insight into things. For better or worse, she did hold a broken kingdom together through hard times. She fought off bandits, improved infrastructure, fixed a lot of things. All things we need done now. It’s worth noting that many people joined her willingly, and many would again.”

“I know,” grumbled Korra. “Her approval numbers would probably still be better than mine right now. And I get the rest of that, I do. But when I talked to her before, asking the same questions, she just wanted me to bribe people, and assassinate others. You can’t start a democracy that way. Has she changed at all?”

“Well,” Asami gathered herself. “She’s changed physically. She’s pale, weak, fragile. I was able to lift her off the ground like it was nothing. As for her ideals-”

“Asami.”

Asami caught herself, realized what she had confessed. She felt suddenly very warm.

“Why were you… you did what?”

“It was… it was a moment of weakness. She said something that made me angry. About you. About us. I just lost control for a moment, and grabbed her around the neck. It was stupid, I know. But what she said… it…”

Korra leaned in closer, a look of dread concern on her face. “Asami, I… I know what people say about us. She was just trying to hurt you.”

Asami shook her head. “Maybe. Maybe, but I don’t know.” She felt the urge to cry again, but decided she had spent enough tears the previous day. She would appear resolute, even if she didn’t feel it. “I don’t know, Korra. She wants out. I get that, and I get that it isn’t going to happen. You’d never agree to it, and even if you did, I don’t think we could convince Su, Lin, Reiko, Wu, and everyone else that it would take. She thinks we have that kind of influence but I… I just don’t know.”

There was a pause. Korra, waiting for Asami to finish. Asami, wanting to choke on the silence, and never utter the words.  

Asami inhaled. “She said that I should leave you.”

A void opened in Asami’s gut, and she saw the same expanse in Korra’s eyes. Shock had taken the color out of them. Pale blue, like a forever sky on a Spring morning, so infinite you could start flying and never stop. Asami simply looked into them, wanting nothing more.

Korra’s voice trembled. “And… and… you’re not going to do that, are you? You’re just bringing it up because I asked, right? I just asked why you attacked her, and you’re answering. That’s it. Nothing more. This isn’t what we needed to talk about. It can’t be.”

Asami pulled her hands from Korra’s, and placed them on her trembling shoulders. “No. I’m not going to leave you. It… it wouldn’t help. But I think that maybe… maybe it’s not out of the question that you should… that you should leave me.”

Korra jumped to her feet, standing over Asami with all the vibrancy back in her eyes. She looked in that moment every bit the Avatar, like she could tear the world from its hinges with just a thought. She looked close to doing it.

Asami stood with her, reaching for Korra’s hands. “You have to know I don’t want this. But… you read the papers. You listen to the radio. You see the protesters and the signs at your appearances. They hate me. They hate me for what they perceive I’ve done to you, to the Avatar legacy. They blame me for this, because they want - they need - to love you, their Avatar. If you cast me aside… blamed me… disowned me… maybe it would be… politically expedient. Maybe you could… implement some of Kuvira’s suggestions. Maybe you could bring peace to the Earth Republic. Maybe you could stop a war. Maybe everyone could love you again.”

All the authority and power drained from Korra’s visage at that. She clenched Asami’s hands. “Asami… no… please… never. I won’t. I couldn’t. I love you. I love you more than anything. You’re a part of me now. Without you, I can’t be the Avatar. I can’t be Korra. I could only be… empty… broken… Worse than losing my bending. Worse than when… when Zaheer-”

Asami tore her hands free and embraced Korra,  her arms squeezing Korra’s shoulders and the doubt from her own mind. She remembered those weeks tending to Korra. The wheelchair. When she had promised Korra that she would be there if she ever wanted to talk or… anything. Anything. She had meant it then, but did not - could not - truly know the depths of her devotion. She did now. She knew that those depths were limitless, infinite.

Korra’s arms wrapped around Asami’s waist. They lay their foreheads together, eyes meeting, searching, finding truth and strength in forever skies and endless verdant fields.

“I’m sorry, Korra. These last years since... since Zaheer, there's nothing I've wanted more than to spare you pain. And now I just can't stand the idea that I'm the one causing you to suffer. I see the hurt people direct at you, and they say I'm responsible. It just seeps in, after a while. Becomes a subconscious truth. I want to take that pain away. To shield you from it.”

“Asami, you can't do those things if we're apart. And you can't spare me pain by leaving me. There's nothing that could hurt me more."

Asami felt that as a dagger. Clenching, digging beneath her breast. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Then don't talk like that. Because it did hurt me. Don't ask me to send you away. Don't ask me to tear out my own heart." 

The dagger plunged deeper, excavating a hole in Asam's chest. "I won't. I'm sorry."

Korra shook her head. "Don't be sorry. Be here. Be with me. I can’t do this, any of this, without you. And I don't want to try.”

Asami steeled herself. “You’ll never have to. I’m here for you. For anything.”

"Sounds perfect," whispered Korra, managing a crooked grin.

\-----

Asami pulled out of the garage several hours later, her mind full of Earth Republic cities, dignitaries, politics, history. In the passenger seat was a briefcase containing everything Kuvira had written to Korra, in addition to police reports, trial testimony, camp records, everything. Well, not everything. She was driving to the library, where they had a microfiche, and newspapers covering every detail of Kuvira’s reign.

"Sounds perfect," she whispered, wishing for all the world that it was. 


	4. Chapter 4

Asami had been asked, not infrequently, if she knew everything. This question irritated her each time, because it focused only on the presence of knowledge, and not on the acquisition thereof. It got the emphasis backwards. She would smile, always smile, and with just a hint of professorial condescension, she would say that the only thing more infinite than her ignorance was her desire to eliminate it. No, she did not know everything. But given a spark of inspiration and enough time, she could learn anything.

Korra had once mused, during dinner, that she couldn’t rationalize her deep and abiding love for seaweed noodles. Asami, having recently read a text on the historical nutrient density of Southern Water Tribe diets, proceeded to list various phytonutrients and chemicals that would otherwise be lacking in a largely animal-based diet. This, she imagined, endeared the foodstuff over generations, as surely people would note that eating seaweed promoted health. It was likewise possible that the brain could register dense nutrient packages, and ignite corresponding pleasure centers, as a means of encouraging a nutritious diet. (The noodles, being a starchy delivery vessel, would amplify this hypothetical response.)

Korra had not, as it happened, wanted an answer to her query, because it had not been a query at all. “You lost me after iodine,” she’d said. Korra had asked her a question then, however. “Why do you know that, anyway?”

“Because,” responded Asami, “I found myself asking that question too, a few months ago, and realized I did not immediately have a logical answer. There are many things I don’t know, of course. But when I know that I don’t know a specific thing, that void gnaws at me until I fill it.”

Asami, at the moment, entertained a void the size of a sandshark’s jaw, and felt for all the world as if it was gnawing her to bits.

Two weeks. For two weeks, at twelve hours a day, she had torn through every newspaper, every book, every record of the Ba Sing Se trials, every Earth Republic police report and bulletin, every single database relevant in any way to the former Earth Kingdom she could find.

She had learned nothing.

Well, no. That wasn’t accurate. She had learned enough to teach a semester of Earth Kingdom history at Republic City University.

She had read Kuvira’s entire prison camp roster, read every name and corresponding number. She had found reports as well of what was done to them. Manual labor and starvation, at the minimum, but more deviant things as well. One very detailed document described how five-hundred people had been subjected to the testing of "potential novel applications for spirit energy in a weaponized paradigm". Two had survived. One could not be moved from his hospital bed; the other had fared slightly better, and she had written a book about her ordeal. _Spirit Scars_ , it was called. Asami had checked the book out, and resolved to read it when she found the time. When she could spare the ache. Her heart had broken a hundred-thousand times already, reading the documents she had. 

But she had learned nothing that would fix the current mess. Nothing actionable.  

She understood the various sectarian tensions that had threatened the old monarchy, when it existed, and the class divisions and cultural distinctions from which this animosity bloomed. She understood the challenge Kuvira had undertaken in uniting such an expansive and diverse nation, and thus the challenge inherent in bringing such a nation together to speak with one voice. (Even if, technically, each state was to be its own distinct entity.) If circumstances were perfect, it would be a difficult - maybe impossible - thing. And circumstances were not perfect.

Asami felt these various bits of knowledge surge along neural pathways, ideas going this way and that, unactionable fact after unactionable fact finding whatever vacant space was available.

And that was all Kuvira had given them. Her list of supposed warmongers, bandits, corrupt politicians, and statements pertaining to them had been, so far as she could tell, an accurate enough listing of formerly high ranking scumbags. They were real people, who had really been either officers in Kuvira’s military or officials in her bureaucracy. They were probably deserving of the knife in the back Kuvira suggested they get.

But they were also totally, infuriatingly irrelevant. Eighty-eight names of former Kuvira disciples, and not one of them could be the slightest bit responsible for the present Earth Republic tumult.  Because all eighty-eight had been, in some form or fashion, responsible for the establishment or operation of Kuvira’s prison camps, and had thus been arrested just after Kuvira herself surrendered. Each one had been convicted of some mix of human rights violations and war crimes. So far as she could tell, all eighty-eight of Kuvira’s keys to unlocking Earth Republic peace were themselves locked up. Kuvira had barely bothered to put butcher’s paper around the pile of bison shit she’d handed Korra. Korra had merely rejected it on principle, and not inspected it closely enough to notice the stench.

Asami stood up from the table, her mind feeling full to the point of spilling over, and yet utterly empty. Frustration burst from her pores. Such a mess, and time to go. It was nearly dark, and she’d arrived before sunrise. And although the library allowed for overnight study, she hadn’t been home before sunset at any point since this excursion began. Moreover, she was starting to think that perhaps it was a fool’s errand regardless. Korra had been too polite to say this outright, but each night, her eyes and body said “This late? Again? And for what? You’re not getting anywhere, and you’re not going to.”

Well, perhaps Korra didn’t project precisely that. But in her fatigued, downtrodden state, it was what Asami perceived. What she feared, at least. Korra had trusted her with this research, and she had brought back nothing. She was failing her. Again. Failing her, like when Korra had trusted Asami with her heart. And Asami had, for just the slightest moment, suggested she should take it back. She had suggested… she left the thought unfinished each time. It was a nameless evil, a dark thing from a child’s spirit story. Don’t say its name and it can’t find you! Can’t hurt you!

But Asami had said it. Sure, she had abandoned the idea quickly. And she hadn’t argued vociferously even before that. It was... not really even a suggestion. A notion. A thing to consider. But it was, above all else, still a thing she had said.

Korra had been quick to reject Asami's apology outright - and in doing so, Asami hoped, she also rejected the need for one - but Asami still felt the pangs of guilt, and wondered if Korra too felt something lingering.

But she had hid under these books, spoken to Korra only of what she had learned, and what she had failed to learn. Nothing else, for two weeks.

And so she missed Korra, even though she still shared a bed with her every night. She needed to see her, really see her, so that she could speak to her. So that she could apologize in a way Korra might accept. Although Asami was sure she couldn’t find words equal to the guilt she felt, she needed to try. Because, selfishly, she needed to hear Korra forgive her. Needed that explicit forgiveness to fill a hole in herself.

She held fast to the nearest thing Korra had offered: “Sounds perfect.” She delighted in that lopsided grin Korra had flashed then. The grin she had always loved. Still. No moment's reconciliation - however charming Korra had been - could erase the words she had spoken, nor could it stitch shut the wound she may have left open.

“I’m sorry, Korra,” Asami muttered to the books, the maps, the papers, the table.

She found the words. Spirit stories be damned. “I’m sorry I suggested you leave me.”

“I’m sorry I intimated that the world might be better off without us together.”

“I’m sorry I invoked political expediency when discussing our relationship.”

“I’m sorry I forgot that when I said anything, I meant anything.”

“I’m sorry I needed to see that hurt in your eyes to bring me back.”

“I’m sorry that I put that hurt there.”

“I’m sorry that I haven’t said anything about it since.”

“I’m sorry that I’m scared. So scared that I’m encasing myself in work, like I always do, because you could hurt me, Korra, like no one and nothing else could. I'm scared and I'm hiding.”

“I’m sorry that, despite all of this work, I can’t fix anything.”

“I’m sorry that the world might just be broken, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”


	5. Chapter 5

Asami awoke to a chill, which meant that Asami awoke alone. She moved her hand across the indentation where Korra had been, picturing the small of her back still there. She traced circles on the sheets, feeling the warmth that remained. She kissed the pillow where Korra’s head had been. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be,” said her vision of Korra. “Be here. Be with me.”

“I’m here,” said Asami. “Where are you?”

\-----

A note under the teapot:

Asami,

I’ve driven myself to see Kuvira. I think I got through to her once, and I need to see if it’s possible again. You make it sound like she’s changed so much, but I have to try. Anyway, I hope you don’t sleep too late, or this will be cold!

\-----

Kuvira bit her bottom lip until her mouth tasted of copper. She did this often, as it was the nearest approximation of contact with metal she was afforded. It was a pale, empty satisfaction, but it was hers.

She did this over the newspaper this morning, scanning, as ever, for news about her Earth Empire. As ever, there was no lack. And as ever, the news was red. Bandits robbing trains, starving towns. Local politicians who wouldn’t mobilize the police, and no central government to mobilize the military. A bomb in a cafe. A car driven into a police station, resulting in a brutal crackdown against the citizenry.

It went on.

Kuvira felt a swelling behind her eyes, but suppressed it. She had no room for sadness, only anger. And that she would direct at Korra, who was the cause of all this grief.

A knock on the door. A weak, infuriating thud. “Visitor, Kuvira. Back against the wall.”

She was already seated, and did not move except to bite her lip harder.

“Kuvira,” said the voice in the doorway. Now approaching. A sorrowful countenance. The pity evident on this face insulted her.

“Do not presume to patronize me, Avatar.”

“I’m not here to patronize you,” said Korra, sitting down beside her. Though the Avatar’s face showed concern, there was warmth in her eyes. It struck Kuvira like sunlight on skin that had only known darkness for years. It burned terribly. “I’m here to see you. To see how you are.”

“And now you see,” said Kuvira, gesturing broadly. “What do you think?”

“I won’t lie, you look… unwell.”

“So you don’t come to patronize me, but to insult me. I prefer that, actually.”

“No,” said Korra, placing her hand on Kuvira’s knee. “This place is… not healthy. Life without the sun, fresh air, your bending… that can be hard. I know. What I mean is that I’m not here to assess your physical state. I’m interested in your mind instead. You seemed so contrite, once. I thought I understood you then. I said as much. Now, I’m not sure. You could help to save thousands of your people’s lives, maybe tens of thousands. Maybe you could help prevent a civil war. And yet all you gave was a worthless list. The Kuvira I understood would do anything for her people. Help me understand you now.”

\-----

The tea was warm. A little too warm, in fact, given that it was green tea, and should thus have been prepared at a relatively low temperature to begin with. Generally, the temperature should never exceed-

Asami stopped, cursed herself, pinched the bridge between her eyes, and sighed. Shit.

“Thank you, Korra,” she said. “The tea is perfect. I’m the only bitter thing here.”

It was getting to her. All of it. She needed the rest, Korra was right. But she needed answers more. Because without answers, there could be no rest.

Every moment of inaction would feel like failing Korra, but then again, her lack of genuine presence these last two weeks made Asami feel like she was doing that already.

She had no leads, granted. Nothing resembling a hint of a lead, even. So far away from any useful information that she couldn’t even guess what useful information might look like, in this case. What was she even looking for?

Regardless, Asami took comfort in work, and so she would work.

She resolved to study what she had at hand - perhaps she would glance at _Spirit Scars_ , the prison camp memoir she’d checked out the previous day - and prepare seaweed noodles for lunch. Surely Korra would appreciate the effort, if not the texture. (She could never get that right. Too firm, always. A bit like Korra and the tea, now that she thought of it.)

There would be time after that for an apology. A real one.

\-----

Kuvira brushed Korra’s hand away. “Then there is no misunderstanding. Everything I do is with my people in mind. I will help them if my conditions are met, because I cannot help them until then. You know what these conditions are. Asami must have mentioned them to you. Meet them, and we’ll talk. Until then, you’ll understand nothing more.”

Korra shifted. Several minutes, and already she was beginning to understand how uncomfortable this plastic was. “The conditions… that’s another thing I don’t understand.”

“Really?” snapped Kuvira. “I think they’re quite clear.”

“I know what they are,” stressed Korra. “That much is clear. And I’m halfway to understanding why you want them met. Your desire to be free of this place isn’t hard to grasp. And I know that you think you could unite-”

“I know. This is not guesswork.”

“Fine. You know you could recapture your Empire, if given the chance. And you could snuff out violence, using violence of your own. I understand that. But you need to understand that it’s never going to happen.”

“Never is a long time. Circumstances could dictate otherwise.”

Korra waved her hand at nothing. “So cryptic. I admired your bluntness once, so please explain this directly.” She turned herself to face Kuvira, fidgeting more. “Asami and I…”

\-----

Asami had read, so far as she knew, every primary source regarding the specific barracks in which _Spirit Scars_ ’ author had been imprisoned. She was aware already of every experiment that had been conducted, and the results thereof. Such things were not easily forgotten.

She had known already that every occupant of that barracks had been a non-bender, and had been injected with a scaled amount of spirit vine concentrate.

But the reports she had read were cold, clinical, dispassionate things. They chronicled the amount injected, and the subsequent descent into madness and abject paranoia. They catalogued the severe weight loss, the lethargy, the pallor. Ultimately, they recorded the death.

They made no mention - as _Spirit Scars_ did - that these non-benders could, in the days before they went to pieces, move drops of water across a table. Could light a candle. Could shift sand. Could roll tin.

They made no mention of the man who had turned himself to ash, nor the woman who buried herself one-hundred feet below ground.

They made no mention of the glowing eyes in the pitch black, haunted things, ghosts still bound by flesh.

\-----

“Asami holds you back, Korra. Prevents you from reaching you purpose. Balance? Unity? So long as you’re with her, there will never be peace. Leave her, and you will have it. In the Earth Empire, at least. I can promise you that.”

Korra sighed, exasperated. “You seem so sure. But how? How can you know that our separation would fix everything? It doesn’t make sense.”

Kuvira examined the board, smiled. It was time, she supposed. “I can predict these things, because they are my pieces to move. My soldiers to command. My soldiers that I did command, years ago, to do precisely this. Simple instructions: If I happen to be captured, tear the nation to pieces until I am restored.”

The disbelief on Korra’s face was as beautiful as Kuvira had hoped. She was stunned, silent, mouth agape.

Kuvira delighted in the moment, adopted her most condescending tone. “Call it a contingency. So long as I am here, thousands who remain loyal to me will continue to fight against order. They will do so as bandits, policemen, military, politicians, and citizens. When I am free, they will cease.”

Korra clenched her fists and jaw. Violence was near to bursting from her. “Tell me who.”

Kuvira laughed, deeper than she had in years. “No, I don’t think I will. I could, though. Not like that previous list. That was a little nothing. Not even a diversion, really. Just a reminder that I'll lie to you, until I get what I want. This time, I would deliver written and sworn testimony in front of every world leader and dignitary who saw fit to attend. You could invite every newspaper reporter, and bring one of Varrick’s cameras to record me. I could give you all of this, if you give up but one thing yourself.”

“Asami.”

\-----

Asami hit her head on the table. Bounced it again, again, again, once for every four hours she had wasted on this nonsense. On this deluded fiction. The other primary sources had not mentioned these things, because these things had not happened. Because these things were the ravings of a poisoned madwoman. Though Asami was sympathetic to her plight, her sympathy did not extend to belief. Certainly not enough to compensate for the total conflict with every other existing primary source.

Certainly not enough to compensate for the fact that, when the woman was rescued, she had proven as competent a bender as Asami herself. When she protested that she just needed another injection, and was denied, she had attempted to bite into her own wrist, and drink the blood therein.

Asami wondered how such things got published in the first place, then stood, stretched, and walked to the kitchen.

She had no useful information for Korra - still - but she would at least provide her with noodles.

\-----

Asami.

That name awoke within Kuvira a latent arrogance, a swelling sense in her breast. It felt like her old uniform, like she once again stood in front of her great army. Like she ruled again. Pride and power returned to her eyes.

“Your options are simple, Korra. If you want to keep Asami, you need to convince whoever it takes to free me.”

Korra swallowed, eyes wide. She was sweating. 

Kuvira shrugged. “Or, you need to gather those politicians, reporters, and cameras I mentioned earlier, and denounce Asami in front of them. Apologize to the world for your lapse in judgment, your fleeting perversion. Publically destroy her, and dance on the remains. Whether you keep her as a private shame or not is between you two. Do this, and to that same audience, I will give my sworn testimony. Every name, and everything about them. I know them all as truly as I know myself.”

“But… what about your people?” managed Korra. “You would leverage them like this? They’re dying, Kuvira. They’re dying, and you could help. But you don’t. And for what?”

“My people? Korra, you taught me an important lesson, years ago. All we love we must be prepared to leave behind. You held Baatar in front of my target, and I fired. You could hold every citizen of the Earth Empire in that same place, and I would fire again. They belong to me still, and I will do with them what I please. And for what? For your heart. You took mine, so I would take yours.”

\-----

Kuvira knew the face of surrender. She had seen it thousands of times, and each time it had emboldened her. None more so than Korra’s, however. She had seen Korra's surrender on the field at Zaofu. She had called her weak then, and prepared to rip out her throat. That victory had been stolen from her. But she saw that surrender again, as Korra left in silence. This time, there could be no rescue.


	6. Chapter 6

The bowl of noodles sitting across the table from Asami made for poor conversation. No better was the - untouched - bowl stationed nearer Asami. Still she sat and watched the steam rise, until the steam stopped rising.

It had been… seven hours since Korra had left? Something like that, judging by the warmth of the sheets when Asami had awoken. Where was Korra? Surely she could not be speaking with Kuvira all this time.

Asami silenced that part of her mind, pushing the anxiety aside. Of course she could take this long. Perhaps she had gotten through to Kuvira. Perhaps she had then gone to contact… everyone but her?

Asami pushed that aside as well. Korra would be fine. Was fine. Surely.

\-----

Asami awoke to no noise at all, merely a sense, a hint of a presence.

“Korra?” she muttered. The space beside her in bed was empty, undisturbed.

She rolled over, and observed a thin strip of light under the bathroom door. Korra’s clothes were strewn on the ground before it. She watched and listened. The shower wasn’t running. Neither was the sink. She heard no footsteps, saw no shadows.

“Korra?” she said, louder now. Still nothing.

Asami pulled herself from bed, slipped on her robe, and made her way to the bathroom. She knocked. “Korra?” Nothing.

Asami cracked the door and peered inside.

Korra was there, hands on the sink. Naked and soaked with sweat, she was trembling. She stared, unblinking, into the bathroom mirror.

Her eyes were dead seas - still on the surface, and Asami saw no life beneath. The skin around them was red, puffy, salinated.

“Korra,” Asami whispered with a dread urgency. Asami ran to her, embraced her.

Cold. Korra did not speak, did not acknowledge Asami in any way.

Asami pulled off her robe, and wrapped Korra in it. She slowly guided her arms into the sleeves, then tied it shut. Korra’s body was rigid, but compliant. She did not blink.

Asami took her by the hands, turned her until they were facing one another. “Korra. Korra!” Asami was trembling then, near to tears. Her previous anxiety had been replaced by abject terror.

“She won.”

The words escaped Korra’s lips like starved prisoners, but to Asami their mere presence was beautiful. Korra had spoken! Then she noted the words themselves. The choice of tense. She won? It was over?

“Korra, please.” Asami pulled gently, guiding her to bed. “Here. Sit.”

Korra did. Her back rigid, her hands frozen in her lap. Asami kneeled before her, kissing those hands, clenching at them. Tears escaped her eyes and fell onto Korra’s hands, like rain onto parched desert.

“Asami,” said Korra. A hint of realization - of life - in her voice. Her hands moved, and began to wipe the tears from Asami’s cheeks. “Asami? What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Asami managed, disbelief coloring her question. “I… I don’t know. I just saw you… and I thought… I didn’t know what to think. You looked-”

“Broken.”

Not a question.

“No! No, Korra.” Asami pulled herself up, coughed, wiped her eyes clean. She sat beside Korra, embraced her. “No.”

Asami remembered running towards Korra, seeing Kuvira’s spirit beam envelop her. She had never known a terror like that moment. And she had never known such conviction, nor seen such power, as when Korra bent that beam, and tore open the very fabric of reality.

She had known, in that moment, that this woman was capable of anything.

Beyond doubt, this was a thing she knew. Until, with that same conviction, Korra told her of Kuvira’s revelations, and said again, “She won.”

Won? She won? It was over. Over without a fight. Well, no. There had been fighting for years. They simply hadn’t known it was a coordinated effort. Could not have known. Now, maybe, it was too late.

“Did you go speak with Raiko then? With Lin? Are you going to consider-”

“No. She’s not getting out. Not ever.”

If they weren’t letting Kuvira out, that meant…

A wave of grief overtook Asami. She wanted to drown in it. She felt as if she might, but first, she had to speak.

“Korra… I need you to know that I love you no matter what. That I’d sacrifice anything for you. Including myself. If you… if you need to do this… I understand. I won’t hate you for it. If you can prevent war… bring peace… balance… well, you’re the Avatar. I’m no one. The world doesn’t need me.”

Asami saw the seas in Korra’s eyes shift, waves beyond measure bounding across the surface. Beneath, there was something incomprehensible. Asami looked into those depths, and knew that this was a thing she could not learn, a power greater than the sum of human understanding.

A spirit that had lived a million lives and would live a million more spoke, and when it did, Asami was brought back to reality, because the voice was entirely Korra’s. Her Korra.

“You’re my world, Asami. I need you.”

Asami felt grounded again. The sensation of drowning was gone. She felt warm, dry. Safe. Loved. But she felt, as well, a burning question.

“Then… how has she won?”

"Because she broke me, Asami."

Whatever Asami had seen - or imagined - in Korra’s eyes was gone now. Before her was Korra, still wet, cold, draped in her too-large bathrobe. The power was gone from her, and she looked very afraid. Asami did not see the Avatar, but her love. She saw her hurt, and so she held her.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

“After Zaheer, after I left… I tried to come back sooner. I did. But I couldn’t. I kept seeing this… avatar-” She laughed. “The avatar of the Avatar? I’m a mess.”

Asami squeezed her again. “It’s ok. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I… think I do… somehow? Anyway, she looked like me - or like I did, before I hacked my hair off with a sword.”

“You did that with a sword? Wow. It looked really cute.”

Korra tugged at her hair. “Asami, please. Any other time, compliment away.”

“Sorry. But it was cute. Is cute.”

“Thanks. Anyway, uh, so I would see this… version of myself. Long hair. Dressed like me. Looked like me exactly, except that her eyes were glowing all the time. Like she was always in the Avatar State. I’d see her and she’d… well, it’s hard to describe. She’d lead me. Goad me. Antagonize me. I couldn’t get rid of her until I saw Toph, and bent the remaining metal out of myself.”

The threat was gone, but even still, the thought of that metal in Korra’s body made Asami sick. She hated that memory.

“So… did you see her again?”

“No. Well, not exactly her. Because the… eye thing… it didn’t end with her. When I fought Kuvira at Zaofu, it happened again. Her eyes.”

There was a spark of something in Asami’s mind. Not yet enough kindling, however.

“She was strong. So strong, then. She… well, she had me beat. Badly. Until I went into the Avatar State. That was when… well, the hallucinations came back. I saw that glowing in her eyes and I… I just cracked. Broke.”

“And you saw that again today?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I didn’t see it. You can’t see something that isn’t there. That’s what has me scared more than anything. I hallucinated it again. When she was finishing her rant, there was just a flash. Blink and you miss it stuff. But I couldn’t blink, once I saw it.”

Korra buried her head in Asami’s shoulder. “I thought I was past this. I knew I was. But I guess… I guess I was wrong. I guess I’m still broken.”

Asami did not believe in eureka moments. She did not believe that knowledge suddenly appeared, nor did she like the idea. The number four was nothing to delight in, after all. But the equation two plus two equals four? That had all the beauty and truth of the universe in it.

And so Asami added.

“When you and Kuvira fought the first time… you said she was really strong, right?”

“Obviously,” said Korra. “She beat me.”

“And the second time?”

“Not strong enough. I won.”

“True, but the doctors did say that she broke three ribs when her mech split in half, and crashed. She wasn’t herself after that.”

“Hey, I was in that mech too. I'm not apologizing for anything. A win is a win. She was tough, though, I guess.”

Asami searched for the right words, shuffling the pages in her mind. “And now… would you say she’s weaker? That she looks pallid, lethargic? And what of her mental state? Mad? Paranoid?”

Korra sighed. “No, I wouldn’t say that, because I don’t even know what pallid means. I’d say she looks like shit, and yeah, she’s much weaker now. You picked her up with one hand, right? She’s a skeleton. A skeleton that’s gone completely insane. You spoke to her. You know. She’s ready to see her whole country burn just to break us up. It’s stupid. The old Kuvira was crazy, but her crazy had a point. She just… lost it, somewhere along the way.”

The spark was a raging fire now. Only one more variable to add.

“And her eyes, Korra. You saw her eyes glow?”

“Asami, what are you talking about? Yes - I mean, no, I didn’t. I imagined it. My eyes can glow like that, hers can’t.”

Equals…

“Korra, wait here. I have a book you need to see.”

\-----

In general, Korra hated it when Asami tried to read in bed. She said the light was too bright. That she couldn’t sleep. That would just rather cuddle, or… well, she wouldn’t admit to wanting anything more than that.

It seemed to Asami, however, that Korra hated _Spirit Scars_ with a special passion.

“This is insane.”

“I agree.”

“So, what? You think…” Korra rubbed her temples. “You think Kuvira was injecting herself with… with this?”

Asami shrugged. “The thing about the eyes lines up. As do the physical symptoms.”

Korra tossed the book to the foot of the bed. “And? There’s no other evidence. At all. You said so yourself.”

“An absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.”

“The author tried to eat her own arm. How’s that for evidence?”

“Compelling. An alternative plan would be more compelling, however.”

“Asami, literally anything else at all would be a better plan.”

Asami agreed. Wholeheartedly, in fact. But still. They had nothing. Nothing, except Earth Republic blood on their hands.

“I don’t pretend to understand how you do that… thing, with the spirit vines. But you do it. You can see things that way, right? Well, the human mind is… well it’s not ‘like that, like that’, but it’s like that enough. Maybe you could see into her. Maybe she wouldn’t have to confess.”

Something passed across Korra’s face, and she turned away. Fear. Fear at-

“Even if this crazy person is right about everything, and even if you’re right that Kuvira was trying to engineer herself into some sort of… super-bender, I guess? … even if all that is true, especially if all that is true, what makes you think I want inside her mind? They call it a sickness, right? What if that sickness is contagious? What if I catch it? I could be...”

Poisoned. Again. The thought fell like a stone into Asami’s gut.

“I… I’m sorry Korra. I didn’t think of that. I should have.”

Korra turned back to her, forcing a grin. “It’s fine. You’re fine. I’m just scared. Scared that it won’t work. Scared that this crackpot theory is all we have. And some part of me is even more afraid of what would happen if it did work.”

Asami wanted more than anything to tell her that it would be fine. But she didn’t know that, and thus couldn’t say it. Kuvira’s spirit weaponry was something new, something terrible. If this even was an example of that… Korra could be poisoned. She could become like Kuvira, a deranged husk of her former self. The thought sickened Asami.

“Korra, I… I won’t ask you to do this.”

Korra exhaled, and looked to shrug off the weight of the decision. “You don’t have to. I’m going to try. It’s stupid, and I want you to remember that. But still. It’s something. And you know me, Asami, I’d rather do a stupid something than a smart nothing.”

That was Korra. Her Korra. Impulsive, brash, and so brave.

“Asami, a brilliant woman once told me something very wise. She said that, ahem, ‘You can’t be afraid to mix it up sometimes.’”

“She does sound brilliant.” Asami tossed her hair. “And beautiful.”

Korra cleared her throat again. “Oh yeah. Very. But, uh, don't tell her I said this, because she can never admit to being wrong... but... she was dead wrong about that.”

“Excuse me? I - she can admit when she is wrong perfectly well. Thank you.”

“Right. Sure she can. Well, sorry, but she was wrong about that. The truth is that you can be afraid to mix it up sometimes. A lot of the time, even. But that doesn’t matter. You can be afraid, but you still have to mix it up, when the time comes. You can be afraid, but you can’t let it hold you back.”

Asami, again, imagined the worst case scenarios. Then, forced them from her mind. Those things, she could not control. But her actions, those were hers.

“Whatever happens… Korra, I’ll be there with you during, and I’ll be there for you after.”

Korra smiled. “I know. That’s why, even though I’m afraid, it doesn’t matter. I just picture you on the other side of that fear, and I know I can get through it. Because there’s nothing I wouldn’t go through to get to you.”


	7. Chapter 7

Asami drove slowly on the road to Kuvira’s prison. Prolonging the trip, delaying the inevitable. She remembered the first official dinner date she and Korra had taken, after returning from their shared vacation. She had driven like this then too, without realizing it.

“Asami, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone pass you before tonight,” Korra had said.

It had taken Asami a moment to grasp her meaning, but once she did, it took far less than a moment for embarrassment to swallow her up.

“I’m just...” she had searched for an excuse, and not found one. Staring up at the star-freckled night sky, and then at the beautiful woman beside her, she had decided that the truth would suffice.

“I’m just trying to make this last a little longer.”

Korra had said nothing in response, merely smiled, and grasped her hand. That had been enough.

Korra held her hand now as well, but it was not enough, not enough to drive away her fears. That previous night’s anxiety had been born of eager anticipation, this morning’s sprung out of darker places, places too deep for Korra’s hand to reach.

Asami could not remove the memories of Korra’s previous poisoning from her mind, could not even push them from the forefront. She remembered Korra’s physical limitations, and tending to her. But she was not afraid of caring for Korra.

She was ashamed to admit it, even in the silent corners of her own mind, but having to care for Korra again… she found herself wishing for it. Bargaining. Just don't take her from me. Please. That's all I ask.

It was the potential for absence, that looming void, that Asami feared.

What if Korra’s mind was broken? What if she no longer recognized her?

What if Korra was filled with the same hatred that seemed to plague Kuvira?

What if Korra fled again, without a word, without a chance for protest? What if, even with a chance to speak, she said Asami could not come? What if, this time, she didn’t return?

What if… what if Korra died?

Asami saw the potential for all of this. She wanted to insist that these were impossibilities, but the truth was she had no idea what Korra was about to face. Whether she had any chance of success. No one could know, because it was an act without precedent.

To look into the human mind as if it were collection of spirit vines… it was a gross oversimplification. 

What if she had asked Korra - because she had indeed asked, or at least suggested, no matter what Korra insisted - to do the impossible? What if she had asked Korra to embrace her own doom? 

It was too much. Too much, even for Asami's mind. 

She drove slower.

\-----

Kuvira knew the face of surrender. Thousands of times, she had seen it. Thousands of times, she had relished it. She knew what a broken person looked like, how to insert herself into those cracks, and shatter them.

She knew Korra’s surrender, had seen it twice before, wanted nothing more than to see it again.

Kuvira was disappointed.

Korra entered her cell, and there was a presence that came with her. The walls could barely hold it. It was… power… but something beyond that. Something beyond what Kuvira could put into words.

She was afraid, though she couldn’t say why. She felt surrender on her own face, and so she looked to Asami, whose face was also a mask of fear, and set her eyes there. She exhaled, gathered herself. Korra was powerful, yes. She was the Avatar. But she was defeated. Kuvira knew this. Knew this as surely as she had ever known anything. She'd seen the cracks in Korra; she'd put them there. Now it was simply time to exploit those cracks. They were here to discuss terms of her release. That must be it.

\-----

Asami grasped Korra’s hands, looked into her eyes.

“I saw you bend a beam of spirit energy with such force that it opened a portal to the Spirit World. I walked through that portal with you. The amount of energy inside of her... it can't compare. You can do this.”

It was pathetic, she thought. The spirit beam had been a naked thing, however powerful. Whatever was inside of Kuvira was hidden, toxic. How could she convince Korra, when she couldn’t convince herself?

She wanted to tell Korra that... if this didn't work... if something happened to her... But she couldn't. Korra needed belief, and so she would give her belief. If she could find it to give.

Korra nodded, looking as if she didn’t need to be convinced of anything.

“Hey, this is that fear I talked about earlier. It’s ok. We can share it. And anyway, I have a plan. I’ll see you on the other side. Promise.”

She slipped free from Asami, approached Kuvira, and held out her hands.

\-----

Kuvira did not reach out. What was this? A singing circle?

“Fine,” said Korra. “Be difficult.”

Her hands leapt, clenching either side of Kuvira’s head. She tried to wrench free, to pull the Avatar’s hands away. But she was too weak, and could not move her.

She saw Korra glance at Asami, twist her mouth into a smile. The girl thought she was clever. “Hey Asami, don’t think about a pink badgermole.”

A joke? She was insulting her now? Still, despite her rage, a pink badgermole flitted across Kuvira's mind. How could it not?

Confusion flashed on Asami’s face, then, a hint of a laugh. Finally, belief. She was no longer afraid, and that put a deeper fear into Kuvira. What was this?

Korra turned back to Kuvira, her grip a vice. “Kuvira, right now, whatever you do, don’t think of your sleeper agents. Don’t think about how you planned to steal back the Earth Republic.”

\-----

Kuvira saw stars.

Then, she saw beyond them.

Korra was there, the gatekeeper at the edge of her sanity.

She extended her hands, and Kuvira took them.

“Lead me, Avatar.”

\-----

She was a child, looking at the night sky. Someone told her that each speck of light held other objects by an invisible force. No matter what it looked like, they could never be alone. She resolved to be like that. She wished to be that strong.

\-----

The Queen was dead. The great light in her sky, extinguished. Things began to drift. She began to drift.

She wished to be strong. She wished she could hold things together.

\-----

Kuvira sat in a train car, nursing wounds from another fight with bandits. They were vermin, gnawing at the edges of her nation, carrying plague to her people.

She wished to be strong enough to destroy them all. Perhaps she had a way. It was being investigated.

\-----

Kuvira felt the needle, felt the contents empty into her. She felt power, strength beyond possibility. She knew stone and iron like she knew her own heart; they would beat for her, move for her without a thought.

They became her, and she became them. She was strong, stronger than she ever could have wished. Nothing would escape her. She would never be alone.

\-----

The Avatar. The Avatar was back. Kuvira was the strongest in the world, but the Avatar was not wholly of this world. She sought the needle again.

Kuvira defeated the Avatar. Broke her.

Intoxicating. 

Her strength was boundless, endless, and so should her Empire be. The world should be hers. Only she had the strength to hold it together.

\-----

She was strong, but still she was afraid.

Why? The needle told her not to fear, but still she did. She sought its council often.

There was another voice. What if she was defeated? What then of her Empire? Her people flung into the void, adrift without her strength. It made her sick. She engineered a means by which, even in defeat, she would not lose. She could not. She would return, no matter what. She spoke to people. Powerful people, charismatic people, ruthless people. Her people. You will do this, if I am gone. You will set fire to the fields, burn the withered stalks, so that I may grow again.

Those people. She saw them all. Names, faces, assignments. Everything.

\-----

Kuvira saw the void, and the void spoke to her with Korra’s voice.

“I found it, and I found you. Come back with me.”

She gave herself to the Avatar, and walked with her back across the edge of sanity.

\-----

Asami saw the light in Korra’s eyes, saw it matched in Kuvira’s. Dueling suns exploding in the sky.

She saw Korra bend that light, and then break it.

She saw her lean Kuvira’s head back as that light shot forth from her eyes, her mouth.

She saw the light that shone down on them from the sky, through the massive hole that had opened in the ceiling.

Asami looked up at that sky, then back down, and registered that it and Korra’s eyes were the same blue.

She ran to her, throwing her arms around the Avatar, around Korra. She had done the impossible, because she was herself impossible.

Asami shook her head. “That was your plan? You're... you're insane. Amazing. But insane.”

Korra smiled, one corner of her mouth rising higher than the other. “I know. Welcome to the other side, Asami.”


	8. Chapter 8

Asami remembered her first bike. It had been red and black - of course - as she’d insisted to her father that there was no such thing as boy colors or girl colors, so why should she have to ride the pink one? Not that there was anything wrong with pink. Just that there wasn’t anything wrong with a girl liking red and black.

Her father, to his credit, had been supportive. In his way, he always had been. Right up until… well, until he wasn’t. She brushed that thought away.

The tire. The first time it had gone flat, she aired it up, only to find it flat again the next day. Her father had smiled and said this was a teachable moment, since she had committed a logical fallacy. Put simply, she had conflated a symptom with a disease.

He inspected the tire, found a nail, and pulled it out. “See?” he said. “This nail is the disease. The flat tire was just a symptom. You keep fixing the symptom without fixing the disease, and you don’t really fix anything.”

Asami had thought this lesson learned years ago. But somewhere, at some point, she must have forgotten it.

She had allowed herself to hope that Kuvira was herself the disease, that the bile she spewed concerning her relationship with Korra was a gross exaggeration of what society felt. The woman had been sick, insane. She could simply have been using their love as a weapon.

Moreover, Asami allowed herself to hope that Kuvira’s public confession and testimony - which had already led to over two-thousand arrests in the Earth Republic - would help restore Korra to her proper place in society’s view. Selfishly, she also hoped that it might improve her reputation. She was, frankly, tired of being blamed for the moral decay of society.

And things did improve, at least superficially. Asami was cheekily referred to as “Detective Sato” in the papers now, and depicted in cartoons wielding an oversized magnifying glass. She didn’t find this to be flattering exactly, but then it was better than being called nothing but a pervert.

The tabloids had given her and Korra a sort of combined name as well, like other celebrity couples always seemed to get. She… didn’t quite understand it, to be honest. It was just their two names, mashed together. Not really so clever. But again, better.

She had planted her hope, dared to believe all of this as she watched it grow and bloom. But she had too soon forgotten her father’s lesson. Kuvira was just a symptom; society itself was diseased.

On the night of President Raiko’s dinner honoring several visiting Earth Republic congressmen, she learned this again, and her hope was torn up by its roots.

\-----

Asami would never say so, but she loved Korra’s aversion to full sleeves. Somehow, no matter the occasion, her shoulders were bare. And they were exposed tonight, in a blue dress, not unlike, Asami mused, the dress she had worn the night of Varrick’s wedding. The night she remembered for “Just the two of us.” (It might actually have been the same dress, she thought. Korra wasn’t bothered by the usual rules of fashion.)

She smiled. Asami herself was of course stunning in red, the color, she was always pleased to note, that cheeks turned when she passed by.

She felt that they made a very attractive couple, walking from her Satomobile, hands held, arms twisted together.

“Hey, ladies, ladies, right here!” The first photographer of the night. The first of many.

They obliged, leaning together.

“Uh,” he said, pointing at the lack of space between them. “Could you, uh, maybe find a way to make that look a little more… platonic?”

Asami’s face was the color of her dress. “Platonic? No, I don’t think we can do that.”

He jumped in front of them. “Hey, no. Sorry. I, uh, I misspoke. Hold hands. Do whatever. It’s fine. I’ll just shoot from the shoulders up.”

“Then you don’t get a picture,” said Korra, indignant.

“Hey, hey, don’t be like that. Gals, come on. You have to understand, this is for the entertainment section. People don’t want us to get political. The last time we ran a picture of you holding hands… you should’ve seen the mail room. And the kiss? Yikes. So many angry parents. They don’t want us making statements. You understand.”

“I do understand,” said Asami. “And you need to understand that a lack of representation is a very powerful political statement.”

They walked inside, holding hands tighter - and leaning together closer, if anything - not listening to his protests, or heeding the calls of the other photographers.

\-----

Once inside, Asami asked Korra to find their seats at the principle dinner table. It was windy outside, and after that… disturbance, she needed to check her hair.

Korra elbowed her in the ribs gently. “You mean your hair doesn’t look flawless with zero effort? Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Asami gave her a peck on the cheek, swore her to silence, and went to find the washroom. She was glad that Korra had found a smile, and given it to her. She needed it.

She did not need to find a reporter in the washroom, however, who took the chance meeting - Asami figured it was anything but chance - as an opportunity to whip out her notepad, and fire off questions.

Asami answered them amicably enough, as they were questions she had gotten quite used to. Standard things about how she had sussed out Kuvira’s plot, Future Industries stock prices, et cetera.

“Finally, how do you answer those who ask you to justify your attraction to the Avatar?”

That got her attention. Such strange phrasing, as well. How do I answer those people? Or do you mean you, who is hiding behind generalities? “First of all, I’m not attracted to the Avatar. She’s Korra, to me. I'm attracted to her, not the title. I don’t have to justify that, and I won't.”

“Fine, fine. Can you explain your preference then?”

“My preference?”

“Right. For Korra. Or girls in general.”

“False dichotomy.”

The woman looked up from her notepad. “What?”

“Logical fallacy. I like people, not categories. And Korra is Korra, not a representation of gender tropes. I 'prefer' her like I prefer the sun rise in the morning.”

Her hair was fine. Asami left the woman to scribble in silence.

\-----

When Asami found Korra, she was in a heated argument with Raiko himself.

“I’m sorry,” said the President. “But you should have read the invitation more closely. It specifically said the principle table would seat dignitaries and their spouses. And while I appreciate that Ms. Sato is a very good friend of yours… well… I myself have no problem with whatever you want to do, of course, but the matter was put to vote years ago. Legally, it’s a closed question. I’m really quite sorry. I think you will find that Ms. Sato has been given a more than satisfactory seat at a nearby table, however.”

Asami left without a word. Before she could say - or do - something she’d regret. She didn’t want to embarrass Korra further. Didn’t want to hurt the Avatar’s image in the eyes of the present dignitaries.

Asami heard Korra chasing after, but simply walked faster. Stretching out her long stride, she tried to avoid a scene. I’m sorry, Korra. So sorry, for all of this. For what I put you through.

As she reached her car, Asami felt Korras arms wrap around her. “I’m sorry, Asami. Let’s… let’s just go home.”

Asami tensed, then melted into her. “Korra… I’m-”

“Stop it, Asami. Stop being sorry.” She spun Asami around, looking intently into her eyes. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing to you. This… all of this… it’s because I’m the Avatar. They think-”

“They think I’m perverting a sacred institution. I know. I’ve read the opinion pieces. And you don’t get to apologize for that. It’s not like you could choose otherwise.”

Korra looked down, laughing. “I would choose otherwise, though. More often than I'd like to admit.”

She paused, looked up at Asami. “Well, what are we going to do with these apologies? I don’t want yours, and you don’t want mine.”

Asami had to agree, as she thought about it, that this was a farcical argument. How many couples took turns stressing how awful they themselves were for their lover? 

She pressed her forehead up against Korra’s. “Well, I don’t want yours, but I'm really sick of holding onto mine. I imagine you feel the same way. So, let’s just trade when we get home. And then, I don't know, we can throw them in the trash, and get on with life. Deal?”

“Deal.”

\-----

They agreed to change into more comfortable clothes, and then retire to the couch to trade apologies. Apologies for… what, exactly? Asami felt she was hurting Korra, and Korra felt she was hurting Asami. That, she supposed, was it. They didn't want to cause the other pain. It was stupid, maybe, unloading guilt as part of a choreographed exchange. But then she was stupid, because she felt guilty, and badly wanted it out of her.

Before they could begin, though, a shadow fell across Korra’s face. “We should have stayed.”

“What do you mean?” Asami couldn’t imagine staying at that dinner a moment longer. “That was miserable.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Korra. “Or actually, it does matter. A lot. We should have stayed. I can explain... I just... just come to my office. Please. I need to show you something.” She got up, motioning for Asami to follow.

\-----

When Korra had requested a home office upon moving in with her, Asami had laughed, thinking it a joke. While she agreed they should be able to compartmentalize work, to keep it separate from their leisure, she couldn’t imagine the Avatar had enough paperwork to require an office.

That was before she thought about the volume of fan mail Korra received. And, it had to be said, the hate mail also. Korra got piles of both, everyday. She made what Asami thought was too valiant an effort to get through all of it, and even respond to quite a bit. Korra insisted it was important, however. Too important to skip. And if she wanted to be a relatable Avatar, that was her business.

Still, Asami couldn’t guess what fan mail had to do with anything right now.

Korra moved to the desk, began shifting papers around, looking for something. While she did, Asami looked around the room. She had… actually never been in here before, had she? It looked like no office she had ever seen. More like a kid’s room, really. The walls were covered with art - much of it quite good - of Korra, and even, Asami noted, a fair bit of the two of them together.

“This,” declared Korra, pulling out the letter she apparently had been looking for. “This is why we should have stayed.”

Asami still couldn’t guess at the meaning of this. “Ok. Why?”

“Asami, I… first, just let me explain. And this doesn’t count as my apology, ok?”

Asami nodded. Fair enough.

“I get a lot of mail. You know that. Most of it good, some of it… not. The majority are just kids who think my powers are cool. But a lot of it comes from people who don’t care about that. They just care about us.”

“Us?”

“Yeah,” said Korra, motioning to some of the drawings on the wall, in which they were embracing. “I never wanted to tell you this… because I didn’t want to put a heavier burden on you. Dating the Avatar is hard already. I get that. This… all this… I didn’t want to become an even bigger obligation to you.”

“You’re not an obligation, Korra. You could never be. And whatever this thing is-”

“She killed herself,” blurted Korra.

Asami rushed to her, put her hands on Korra’s shoulders. “What? Who?”

There was sadness in Korra’s eyes, but anger too. There was no room for tears. These were eyes for war.

“Her name was Jun. She first wrote to me two years ago. About us. She was fourteen… and she started to like one of her friends. She said we were her heroes… not because of any Avatar stuff… but because we were together. In public. She wanted to be brave, like us.”

Asami felt understanding dawning in her.

“Two months ago, she wrote me from a camp for teens with Sexual Identity Disorder. Her parents sent her. Did you know about that? That they call it a disorder? That places like that exist? That people could love their children so little?”

Asami could only nod. She did know. But she did not have the words to say what she felt.

“Yesterday, I got this.” She pointed to the letter in her hands. “It’s from her parents. They want me to know that Jun… that she... that I killed her. That’s what they think. They say its my fault. Kids see me, want to be like me-”

Asami embraced Korra, because she needed the touch. Needed to be held. She clung to Korra like she was the only thing keeping her head above water. She looked at the desk. At the drawers. How many more letters like this were there? Hundreds? Thousands?

“I don’t want you to think, Asami.... I never told you before because… It’s just so awful, I didn’t want… I didn’t want to put this weight on your shoulders.”

“I’m asking for it now. Please. We can share it. Share the weight and our strength. I… I can tell this isn’t the first time. And… I’m sorry, but it won’t be the last. I want to help you. I want to help… them, if I can.”

They were silent, still.

“We should have stayed. For her. For everyone like her. For everyone who’s called queer and told that means they’re broken. They need us to be visible, Asami. Even when its hard. Especially when its hard. I don’t want to look back in twenty years, forty years, however long we have, and think that we could have fought harder. Maybe it's not a fight we can win... not in our lifetime. I can't even imagine what winning would look like. But even if we can't give them victory, we can give them hope. We owe them that much, at least. We owe them all the fight we have.”

Asami nodded. "I promise, you'll have everything I can give. And Korra?"

"Yeah?"

"We're done apologizing. For us. Forever."


	9. Chapter 9

Asami sipped the green tea Korra had prepared for her. The temperature was perfect. She laughed to herself. It had only taken Korra decades to get it right. And an electric water kettle. You’d think the Avatar - with control of both fire and water - wouldn’t need the help. But then you’d be wrong. 

She leaned back in her chair, setting the tea on a nearby table and stretching.

“Tired?” asked Korra, knocking on the doorframe.

Asami glanced at the clock above her drafting table, spinning a pencil idly in her hand. She looked down at the sketch, such as it was progressing. Erased here and there, blew away the residue. 

“I guess I am tired. But it’s late, I should be. And this-” she said, pointing at her work, “This cannot be late.”

Korra dragged her feet across the ground, exaggerating her own fatigue. She placed her arms around Asami, kissing the back of her head. 

“You care a lot about this project.”

“Of course I do.” She kissed each of Korra’s hands. “Let me test your memory about something. It’s relevant.”

“A test? Asami…” said Korra, letting the last syllable hang from her lips as protest.

Asami laughed. “You’ll do fine. I’m asking you about your favorite subject: You.” 

“A girl writes one best-selling autobiography, and you just can’t get over it.” Korra moved around Asami, kneeling in front of her, eyes full of mischief. “Is it because it outsold yours?”

“Don’t be silly. I was writing for a… niche audience. I didn’t want to pander to the masses.”

“You must not have found very many people in that niche then. The margin is currently... over a million copies, isn’t it?” She put her hands up in mock surrender. “Not that I check.”

“The test.” Asami cleared her throat, and the subject. “A long time ago, I stood in your office, with my hope for the future dead. I was willing to fight, sure. But did I honestly think it was a fight we could win? No.”

“Asami, you just took this conversation from zero to depressing in record time.”

“Just being honest. You felt the same way. Now… how do I know that?”

“Because I said I couldn’t even imagine what winning would look like.” 

Asami tapped her pencil on the draft paper. “Correct. That said, then you understand my challenge. I’m not trying to imagine what winning might look like. I’m trying to imagine what winning will look like, plopped down in the middle of a park." 

Korra darted her eyes back and forth. “Wait… we won? Why did no one tell me this? I’m pretty important. People should tell me big news.”

Asami smiled, ruffling Korra’s hair. Predictably, Korra shifted her face to a pout. It was, perhaps, more adorable than ever. 

“Present tense, not past,” intoned Asami, using her most professorial voice. “We haven’t won, but we are winning. There is real, tangible progress. And I have hope… hope that maybe the world isn’t as sick as it used to be, and that one day, it can be cured.” 

“Hope… I have that.” Korra smiled in her lopsided way, then her hands flashed. “But I also have your pencil. Which means you're done working. Which means it’s time for bed.”

Asami sighed, relenting. “Can I quote you again?”

Korra puffed out her chest. “Of course. We brilliant authors get used to it.”

Asami rolled her eyes, then focused them on Korra's. “Sounds perfect.”

\-----

Looking in the mirror, I can’t help but wonder why I cut my hair. It’s short, shorter now than when she saw it last. Shorter now than she’s ever seen it. What if she doesn’t like it? I tug on it like if I could just pull hard enough the hair would grow back. But maybe I should just pull it out and buy a wig and start all over.

What if she doesn’t like it short? What if I walk over, all excited, and she’s like “Hey, uh, no.” I mean, it’s not like she could actually be that way… right? I mean, she could, but she wouldn’t. And she could say something else that’s not quite as obvious, but basically means the same thing. She could pretend it’s cute and go along with it and I’d have fun and then text her the next day but she wouldn’t text back. I’d sit and stare at my phone and it wouldn’t make any noise and I would direct all of my frustration at that phone because I don’t think I could be mad at her for anything right now.

My brain basically isn’t working and she broke it and I don’t know how. 

I’m looking at my phone already and wishing she’d call - or maybe just text because a call would be too much - just to let me know we’re still going and we’re still good and yes she meant what I hoped she meant. I mean, it’s not like she was subtle. She asked me to lunch - to take a picnic with her, seriously. And where we’re going? A park where there’s literally a statue of a married couple holding hands. That’s not even subtext anymore, right? That’s, like, just text. Big, bold, italic text. All caps.

When Avatar Korra unveiled the new statue and rededicated the park last year they put a plaque at the base that says something about love and justice and balance. People tell me Asami Sato wrote the words so it’s probably more clever sounding than that. But, I mean, having a picnic at the park with that statue? And the plaque that says… well, something romantic, probably. That’s so cliche I should hate it, but I don’t, because it’s her asking me. 

And “Just the two of us”? We’ve been out to lunch and movers and stuff before, but with other people. We kind of have friends who are all friends so we’ve known each other for a while so going to lunch with her wouldn’t be weird exactly, but going to lunch with just her is basically the definition of weird. But it’s a kind of weird that excites me and intrigues me and so I can’t say its weird exactly because weird sounds bad. And this doesn’t feel bad.

I mean, I do feel bad. Right now, I feel like I’m going to puke. My jeans look flat and my shirt is maybe too tight or not tight enough and I can’t even begin to guess what the right shoes would be because I don’t want her to think this is a big deal so I just put on some flats and I guess that’s ok. I mean it’s lunch and even though it’s a picnic with the happy couple statue right there it’s still just lunch. I’ve been eating food my whole life so it’s no big deal. I can eat food and she can eat food and we can sit together and eat food and it’ll be good. 

But my stomach doesn’t feel like eating anything and so I walk downstairs and find mom and dad sitting on the couch watching pro bending on TV and ask them if they have anything for an upset stomach.

They turn off the TV and get up which is literally the last thing in the world I wanted them to do. Just tell me what pills to take or whatever and turn the TV back on because I just cannot have this conversation right now. Not like it’s a conversation I ever want to have to be honest. It’s just… awkward. “Hi mom and dad this is your precious little girl and I like other girls and I hope you’re cool with that ok thanks bye now!”

“You look snazzy today,” says dad and oh dad nobody has said snazzy in like a million years and even then the people that said it were probably total dorks. I just smile and say thanks though because I don’t want to talk about anything right now.

“Oh stop, you’re embarrassing her,” says mom, walking over, hugging me, pulling on my hair like I was just pulling on my hair like maybe she wants it to grow out longer too and now I’m thinking of her again and what if she really did like my hair long and now hates it short and-

“Hey,” says mom and I’m just looking at her now, mind empty. “Before you go, your father and I were hoping we could talk to you. Just really quick.”

My mind was empty I thought but I was wrong because it was full of water and now that water has turned to ice. Talk. That word sounds like a curse to my ears, like it’s a trigger and now I’m melting. I wish I was melting, I wish I could just find the cracks in the wood floor and disappear into them forever and never have this damn talk. 

I pull out my phone and look at the clock and I have an hour to drive over there but they don’t know that so I say that I don’t really have time for a talk, maybe we should do it later?

My mom just hugs me again and says she and dad are just nervous for me because this is my first real date and maybe talking about it will help clear things up.

“It’s not a date,” I say. It’s not really a lie because I don’t really know. I hope though. I really hope it is more than anything in the world. “There’s nothing to clear up.”

My mom just sighs and says “You know, I’m sorry. We’re sorry. Maybe this isn’t the best time to have that conversation.”

I pull away because the ice on my brain is melting and about to leak out of me and I feel like I’m just going to cry even though I’m fucking sixteen years old and I should be over this. I can’t cry in front of my parents. 

Before I can get to the door I feel her hand on my shoulder and so I turn and dad is standing beside her now. I feel cornered, like they're predators about to tear me apart. 

“Just… before you go… we want you to know that you’re right... that there’s nothing to clear up. We know. And we love you.”

I’m on fire now and so the ice melts and no matter how old I am it doesn’t seem to matter and I’m hugging mom and dad and then both at the same time and just sobbing, sobbing, trembling. This feels like it goes on for hours until every drop of moisture is drained out of me but really it’s like two minutes, tops. 

I sniff and wipe off my face and so they let me go back upstairs so I can make sure I don’t look like a total disaster for this maybe date that maybe isn’t but my brain isn’t working right now.

I come back downstairs and mom and dad are still there and they want another hug and so I give it to them so they’ll get out of the way and I can leave because I really do need to get going now because Republic City traffic is the worst.

Mom is smiling like dad told her a joke but he’s not saying anything so I just kind of raise one eyebrow and of course she knows what I’m asking about. 

“How do I know it’s a date? Honey, she’s taking you on a picnic. To Korra Sato Park. Now just have fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end. Feels funny saying that.
> 
> Anyway, this is a relatively long Korrasami fic in which there is literally no sex or violence... basically only three characters talking a bunch... and an often incredibly dark, angst-ridden tone. I didn't really think there would be any interest in a story matching that description. My honest expectations were that this would get like twenty hits, and then no one would bother. That so many read the entire thing is more exciting than I can tell you. So I'm just going to say thanks. Thanks for reading, sharing, commenting, kudos'ing, bookmarking, everything. I hope you liked it.


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